David Epstein posts these thoughts, following up on posts from Heather Gerken and Rick Pildes (all reprinted from the listserv with permission):

I agree that the most novel part of the case is Kennedy’s assertion that the new District 25 did not satisfy Section 2. In addition to the usual notion that a district has to be geographically compact, he has added the requirement that it be “socially compact” as well, to coin a phrase. Unless the minority residents within the district are sufficiently homogeneous, they will henceforth not qualify as a single “community of interest” and hence will flunk the first Gingles prong.
One way to interpret this standard is to say that although the district had a majority of Latino voters, the two groups had preferences that were so disparate that they could not unity behind a single candidate. On this,then, does anyone know the story behind Lloyd Doggett’s victory in the new 25th in 2004? Did he appeal to both Latino communities? Did he have a Latino challenger? The opinion glides over this issue entirely.
Kennedy tries mightily to limit this ruling, saying that “We emphasize it is the enormous geographical distance separating the Austin and Mexican-border communities, coupled with the disparate needs and interests of these populations — not either factor alone — that renders District 25 noncompact for Section 2 purposes.” I think he intends this to be a one-off ruling, since the changes to the 23rd district really bugged him and he didn’t like the shape or the theory behind the new 25th.
But how successful is this? Surely a Section 2 violation cannot rest on differences in latitude alone. Why can’t this standard be applied to districts like the one in Georgia, uniting black populations from Atlanta and adjacent rural areas? Or even populations that live quite close to each other, but are socioeconomically distinct and, say, rarely mix with each other? If taken seriously, this standard would come heavily into play with every single minority opportunity district drawn from now on.
Another question is whether this is a step back or forwards for the desired movement to a system where race matters less. Roberts clearly thinks that it’s a step backwards. In a quote destined to be a classic, echoing O’Connor’s earlier reference to “political apartheid”, he states “I do not believe it is our role to make judgments about which mixes of minority voters should count for purposes of forming a majority in an electoral district, in the face of factual findings that the district is an effectivemajority-minority district. It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.” (emphasis in original)
But there is an opposite view, which says that by recognizing differenceswithin the minority community, the Court is moving away from a view of society in which monolithic minority voters are opposed by an equally homogeneous white majority. The implication is that the Latino voters in the new 25th that live near the border would share some common interests with other low-income voters, while Latinos in and around Austin could make common cause with others from that area. As the line from “The Incredibles” goes, “When everyone’s special, nobody is.”